A personal blog owned by Zilko, who regularly writes about his life, or anything that comes up to his mind

Category Archives: working life

Last week’s Monday, my team at the office (well, not officially a “team”, but I won’t get too much to details here as that is not point, haha) was able to secure our company’s private boat for an evening tour in the canal of Amsterdam. Last year we had the same event at around the same time but I had to miss it because of a major train disruption; which prevented me from going to Amsterdam as I still lived in Delft at the time. And so obviously I was never going to miss this event this year! Haha 😆 . And also especially because the Amsterdam Light Festival was still on, making the trip even more exciting!

The tour departed at 4 PM where we boarded the company’s private boat in front of the office. Even boxes of pizzas and drinks (including glühwein! 😍) were already prepared on the boat! We were quite lucky that the weather was great that day, despite it being quite cold with temperature at around 1°C, haha. The tour lasted for about 2.5 hours, and so indeed it was really nice!!

In short, I enjoyed the episode and thought that as a show, it was written well. Even though as I said before, indeed the whole series now has dropped the interpersonal/intrapersonal/social conflict aspect, which was core in many episodes of the other previous series, at the most part. Having said that, I am still excited to watch the coming episodes which shows that for whatever reason, this writing works on me!

I notice that after more than a year now, I feel like the variety of my tasks at work has gradually become more diverse. Aside from my main function, there are other tasks which I have been asked or invited to do. Technically those are still parts of my position’s general responsibility anyway so it is not like I am being asked to do things I am not supposed to 😛 .

And to me … so far I find it fun!

You see, of course having wider variety of tasks makes my job much less likely to ever become boring. Well, not that my main function is prone to ever becoming boring, as to me I find it challenging nonetheless. But I mean, having diversity in the type of tasks is also a type of challenge, no? 🙂

Two challenges coming from this diversity, to me, is the ability to quickly “switch” my brain from one task to another, which are very different from each other, and good time management. I realize that time management is not solely about being able to fit as many tasks as possible within my work schedule, but also how to arrange my work effectively such that it allows me to “stream smoothly” between consecutive tasks, be it for my mind-sake (easier “brain switch”) and also physically (arranging two consecutive meetings with 5 minutes of break between them is a bad idea if the two meetings are in different buildings, for instance). This of course can be very tricky when the task is meeting with other colleagues, as we would often have to adjust our schedule to theirs too; which means sometimes compromise needs to be made, haha…

Two weeks ago I volunteered my team and myself to onboard a new hire into the company. My manager was quite surprised by this but he was actually happy that I took this initiative. I have never done this before, though, and so I am still kind of “in the dark” on how things would go to be honest, haha. And so this will certainly be a challenge, but I will try to do my best. I had a pleasant (despite rather “astray”, in a small way) onboarding experience last year; so I have the experience and a vision on how a good onboarding should go. I guess this is also my chance to implement that.

To close the previous quarter cycle, my team at work decided to throw a team wide dinner at a nice fine-dining restaurant in Amsterdam Centrum.

A bit of a back story to this event, in the invitation that was sent around a few weeks prior, we were also asked to mention if we really did not ask fish. To me, well, to be honest I am not the biggest fan of fish but having said that, I also wouldn’t say I really don’t like it, haha. So I ended up rsvp-ing the event without mentioning anything about the presumably fish dish they would serve at the restaurant.

The appetizer was a salmon tartar

On the D-day, we went first to a bar nearby the office before going to the restaurant. To much of my delight, it turned out we were having a three-course meal with two options for the main course where, unsurprisingly, one of those was a seabass dish. But of course I ended up picking the other option, that was a boar tenderloin dish! (Anything but the fish, please! 😛 ).

I opted for the boar tenderloin for my main course

As I said it was a three-course fine dining dinner, where wine was free flowing (there was no moment during my stay there when my wine glass was empty 🙈). It started with a plate of delicious salmon tartar as the appetizer. Then, the main course came, which actually was my first time ever consuming a boar meat and it turned out to be delicious! After that, a chocolaty dessert was served, which was just okay but good nonetheless.

The chocolaty dessert

Utrecht Catch Up

Last week, a good friend of mine and I decided to catch up over dinner. Upon discussion, we decided to meet in Utrecht because it had been awhile since I went there and the last time we caught up was in Amsterdam; so it was due for a change, haha.

We went to a restaurant we had been after for months but, mistakenly, without making any reservation. Consequently there was quite a long waiting list already and we decided to eat somewhere else. And so we chose the top rated restaurant provided in Google maps (well, not the actual “top” one as that one was our original restaurant which was already full, haha); which turned out to be just okay. Nonetheless, it was such a fun night catching up with a friend!

This weekend was the DST weekend in the Netherlands. And it was my favorite one, where this Sunday was 25 hours in length!! 😀

Actually at first I was thinking to go on a weekend trip somewhere this weekend, because the extra hour I would get on Sunday would be very useful to spend while on a trip, no? Haha 😛 . But I kept failing in finding a good deal for the weekend, up to the point that my colleague reminded me that that Friday would be the last Friday of the month, meaning it would also be the time for my office’s monthly bars event!

And this would be the best one of the ten bars events in a year (Apparently there are no event in January and September) because of its proximity with Halloween!! The event would be Halloween-themed which would make it much more special! Special as in there would be some extra activities (like face paintings, props for photos (Halloween-themed obviously), etc) and as in it would last twice as long! Yeay! 😀

And so I decided to drop my travelling plan this weekend (Not that I already had one anyway) so that I could fully enjoy the event, haha. You know, because I would not have to “save” myself for an upcoming trip, like I had to do last year, and I could use the entire weekend for rest if I needed to, haha 😛 .

Anyway, the event was really fun where I went to one of the bars after work where I met many of my colleagues there. I also decided to get some face painting just because why not! Haha 😛 . The face painting stand was very busy btw where I had to queue for like one hour before I got my face painted. I was waiting there with a colleague and many other colleagues were passing by anyway so that helped with the waiting, haha. On my turn, the lady asked me how I would want my face painted, in which I had no idea at all. But I felt like half face painting would be cool so I asked her to do that and let her do whatever with the pattern/style 😛 .

Half face facepainted selfie

And then indeed I used the entire weekend for rest, as I felt really tired! It does not mean I did not do literally anything, though. I went grocery shopping (because I was running out of food at home 😆 ) and managed one gym session on Sunday morning 😛 .

I also watched the conclusions of the WTA Finals tournament in Singapore, where my favorite tennis player, Venus Williams, made the final! Speaking of this tournament, while of course since the beginning I was hoping for Venus to win (like always in every tournament she enters), I did not set my expectation to be that high given the slow tennis court in the Singapore Indoor Arena. Slow court generally does not reward attacking tennis game, the type of game Venus plays. And so it was very amazing to watch Venus fought through with her determination and heart!

In the final, she faced Caroline Wozniacki, a top player she had never lost to before. However, slow court favors Wozniacki’s defensive game, making it a tough final for Venus. In the end, Wozniacki won the title 6–4, 6–4. While certainly disappointed with Venus’ loss, I still felt like it was quite a successful tournament for her, given all the circumstances.

Exactly this day last year, I started my “new” life with my (at the time) new job in Amsterdam!

#thisdaylastyear #Amsterdam #newstart

I can’t believe it has been a year, as certainly it doesn’t feel like it has been that long!! But this means that I can’t say I am new in the company anymore (Though, I have, sort of, “lost” the right to say this after six months anyway, as my company is growing very fast!).

It has been a wonderful and “eye-opening” year for sure, especially that I jumped from academia to industry with this job. I really, really learned a lot during the past one year; be on my hard skills and also my soft(er) skills. But that is not only that. I genuinely enjoy my time in this company as well. My colleagues are nice and the general company atmosphere is also very positive and fun. And so now I am very, very happy that I made this decision to switch last year.

Having said that, it feels like there are still a lot for me to learn and experience which the company can provide and offer. And so I am looking forward to those!

I have mentioned before that on the last Friday of every month (except for January, apparently), my office rents several bars just after working hours in Amsterdam for all employees, where we can enjoy all the food and drink there for free (read: the company pays 😛 ).

Certainly it is fun. Though, somehow I had never attended it since I moved to Amsterdam in April (meaning my last time there was during the March edition, haha). It had something to do with the long weekends, though. The last weekends of both April and May were long-weekend in the Netherlands. So it was indeed quite of an awkward timing, haha 😆 .

But nonetheless, finally I went back to the August event last month! While talking with a few colleagues there, it appeared that I was not the only one who somehow skipped the event for the last a few editions. Well, let’s just say that it is nice to have some accompanies, no? 😛

Speaking of work, I have mentioned quite a few times here that I really like and enjoy it! There is so much I could learn that I feel like I am starring at a huge stack of knowledge and experience (and many different kinds of those) I can immerse myself into! And this is certainly exciting!!

Just recently, for instance, I decided to try out a new tool I had never used before for a new project I got from my director. A new tool would mean different “procedure” and “steps” in my work flow, obviously; so it could certainly mean “discomfort” in my work as I would have to approach it differently “from usual”. But at that point I had seen a few of my colleagues used the tool so I felt intrigued to try it myself. If I found it not useful, of course I could ditch it for my future works. And as it turned out, I loved the new tool and was impressed by it!! 😍 In fact, probably from now on I am going to switch to it (until I find a “better” one, of course 😛 ).

You see, I just learned a new skill from this experience, that is using a new tool. And I feel happy about it!

About a month ago I mentioned that one of my team members resigned in July resulting in me having to temporarily taking over some of her responsibilities until we got a replacement. We estimated probably the replacement would come in one or two months.

But then, we actually got the replacement in August! This was certainly good news (also for me), haha. Though, I could not just hand over everything to my new team member just like that because she was new in the company. Moreover, she just did the switch from academia to industry in taking this job, just like my decision last year, so I totally understood she would need some time to settle.

Of course I have been trying to be as helpful and welcoming as possible because situation-wise, I was in her shoes last year (Though we have different job titles so our work responsibilities are different). Last year I got tremendous support from my colleagues in helping me to learn and settle here. So I am trying my hardest to “return” the favor here, haha.

Overall I am glad, though, as I felt like my workload has increased in the past month or so. I mean, of course I can always put some of those to my backlog as my colleagues would understand anyway that I have limited amount of time. But still, it does not feel nice to see a long list of tasks in your backlog, especially when some of those are “take-overs”, haha 😛 . Even though, of course, she could not immediately re-take over all of those responsibilities, as she certainly needed the time to settle and adapt to everything; but she certainly could start with some tasks. Coming from academia helped as well, where in my opinion her learning curve was fast. So I am sure shortly she will be able to fully reclaim the “take-over” responsibilites I got from my ex-colleague. But in the meantime: